Giambattista Vico (1668-1774)

The image is free only apart from the concept seen as supreme achievement of reason fully developed.

Paradoxically, without imagination, a view of the whole cannot be reached.

“In any case, it is Vico who with his conception of fantasia creates a novantiqua outside of the above mentioned disjoint between Geist and Leben and the ancient Platonic disjoint between idea and image. I suggest that Vico in the 21st century ought to be accorded a fair hearing on his own merits as a Herculean hero of philosophy. His message, just as Levinas’, is urgently needed for a reassessment of the cultural identity of Western civilization in general and of the European Union in particular.”